Review: "The Crazies" (2010)

Although it?s a remake, ?The Crazies? (2010) is the best horror film I?ve seen in a long time. Here is a movie that expertly fires on all cylinders; it?s scary, suspenseful, action-packed, smartly scripted, beautifully shot, and well choreographed and acted. Nothing in the film is exactly new, but it?s all done so well that it feels fresh and original. And while I wouldn?t call it effortlessly entertaining, it never seems to try too hard to accomplish all of the above. It goes for just the right notes to get the job done, and as a result it feels lean and sometimes vapid, but at the same time it can?t be accused of going overboard or slipping into bad melodrama or heavy-handed subtext.

The title says it all. ?The Crazies? is essentially a zombie movie, but instead of the living dead, your friends and neighbors are infected by a virus that causes them to go crazy and homicidal before dying a couple days later. It?s a bit like the rage infection from ?28 Days Later,? but not quite the same. Like most horror conventions we?ve seen plenty of times before, the film finds a way to put a new spin on it. Crazies tend to stare off into space, but they can also communicate and become cleverly violent. When they first turn, there is little to distinguish them for normal people, but as the disease progresses their muscles tense up and they look like they?re about to explode from the inside with blood pressure.

The story is simple horror to the core. A plane carrying a biological weapon crashes in a small town and contaminates the drinking water. People starting going crazy and killing, and the military quarantines the area to contain the virus. Unlike the original, which supposedly focuses on the military and political overtones, the remake focuses on visceral horror and a small group of townspeople, centering on a sheriff played by the talented Timothy Olyphant. He starts to uncover the outbreak before anyone else, and when the military arrives, he is separated from his wife and tries to escape so he can save her. There is a great exchange between him and another quarantined prisoner and friend who tells him not to go on any fools? errands. The sheriff replies, ?Don?t ask me why I can?t leave without my wife, and I won?t ask you why you can.?

Every aspect of the film contributes here, but what makes it work (and more significantly, memorable) is it?s a nonstop rush of adrenaline, and most of the scenes are extremely inventive. Once it gets going, which doesn?t take long, the movie never lets up or slows down enough for you to examine flaws. And we?ve all seen the pitchfork through the bed routine, but what if the victim was quarantined and strapped down the bed, forced to watch in terror as a roomful of lifelong acquaintances are killed before them in the same way they?re about to go? The sequences in the car wash and truck stop are bound to become classics, if not instantly. The pacing and inventiveness combined with many other strong elements make for a very potent dose of horror that no fan of the genre should miss.

There is a part of me that wishes the film had a little more meaning and weight to it, but when I think of the heavy-handed messages in recent Romero ?Dead? flicks there is another part of me that is thankful it avoids that potential pitfall. I haven?t seen the original ?The Crazies? (1973) by George Romero, but I can tell you this remake is light-years better than anything Romero has done since ?Day of the Dead,? and I think it?s scarier (and more entertaining) than any Romero movie I?ve seen. ?Dawn of the Dead? is great?it?s a classic?but it never put me on the edge of my seat, nearly unable to breathe, like ?The Crazies? did for most of the ride. And in its own lean way, the message is there when the town deputy says: ?Fuck you for what you did.?